A retired military chief has issued a grim warning: Britain’s “broken” army is 20 years out of date, its military is falling behind other comparative nations, and the threat of rogue players such as North Korea looms – and all the while, the UK government continues to slash the defense budget.
Gen. Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of the Joint Forces Command, took the government to task as he gave evidence to the Commons Defence Committee (CDC) on Tuesday in London as a part of a government review of national security capabilities.

“All three armed forces are falling behind the rate of innovation you see in our peers,” he told the committee.

The people who are in defense, they have to keep going every day so they are never going to say publicly, or to themselves, or to their enemies, or to their allies, that we’re broken.

“But when they fly, sail or deploy on the land and they look at their equipment, they look at their sustainability, they look at the shortfalls in their training and they look at their allies, they know they are not fit for purpose.”

During the evidence session, Barrons warned there are multiple“existential threats to our country,” saying that Britain needed to be prepared for them.

“We now live in an age where people who are not on our side have capability that they could – not saying they will, they could – inflict on the UK homeland at short notice, which we can’t deal with.